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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23752132">gravity losing its hold</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacegandalf/pseuds/facingthenorthwind'>facingthenorthwind (spacegandalf)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Addiction, Canon Compliant, Community: HPFT, Felix Felicis, Gen, Post-Second War with Voldemort, Quidditch, Ron Weasley-centric, Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 16:22:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>9,761</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23752132</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacegandalf/pseuds/facingthenorthwind</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Being an auror is not half as cool as comics made it seem, so Ron joins the Chudley Cannons reserve team, the Chudley Chutneys. There's one small problem: he's not that great at quidditch.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>George Weasley &amp; Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>36</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/poppunkpadfoot/gifts">poppunkpadfoot</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/RonsGirlFriday/gifts">RonsGirlFriday</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Thank you so much to Kayla, of course, whose constant gentle bullying is the only reason this exists, and to Melanie, my Ron Weasley expert. Thanks also to ao3 users renaissance and Izilen, and everyone who helped me brainstorm this! You're the best &lt;3</p><p>This was written for round two of Kevin's Knockout Challenge on HPFT, theme: luck.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It turned out that being an auror was actually nothing like the stories. Sure, there were actually chases and big battles, but it was exactly like what Ron had been doing for a not-insignificant part of his schooling except with paperwork. After they’d defeated Voldemort, Ron had just wanted to try to rebuild his life — he didn’t know what it would look like without Fred (or, a voice in the quiet hours whispered, without Voldemort to fight), but he was pretty sure the first step was to go back home to the Burrow and then not receive a copy of the <i>Prophet</i> for at least three months.</p><p>He brought Harry and Hermione, of course — nobody wanted to bring up the fact that Hermione might never get her parents back, and Harry never had a home to go back to. They got a whole two weeks of reprieve before the Ministry came calling, Kingsley Shacklebolt himself knocking on the door to ask them to become aurors.</p><p>Hermione refused, saying she would consider it once she had her NEWTs. This was before McGonagall had contacted any of them about the possibility of going back to school, but the look on Hermione’s face made Ron a little breathless — she was going to get her NEWTs come hell or high water, and it didn’t matter that there wasn’t a structure in place for her to do it yet.</p><p>Kingsley said they didn’t have to decide immediately, but he would appreciate an answer by the end of the week. Ron couldn’t fathom going back to school — he would see Fred’s body every time he entered the Great Hall, and he couldn’t imagine caring about having to write a foot on stinkwort root when he had been running for his life from Death Eaters only a few months earlier.</p><p>When he told his parents, his mum cried, insisting that he had done enough. “You’re only a boy — this isn’t your fight. It should never have been your fight.”</p><p>He didn’t bother to argue with her, to tell her that regardless of what should have been, this was where they were now. If this wasn’t his fight before, it sure as hell became his fight when the Death Eaters crashed Bill and Fleur’s wedding and Harry talked about going after the Horcruxes by himself, like the self-sacrificing idiot he was. But he wouldn’t convince her like that, and besides — he’d been making an effort to be gentle with her. So instead of arguing, he hugged her. “It’s fine, Mum,” he said. “Merlin, I’ll probably be safer with the Ministry than I was the whole of last year. Don’t worry.” </p><p>“I can’t lose another son,” she whispered into his jumper, and he tightened his arms around her before looking her in the face.</p><p>“I promise, Mum, I’ll be fine. They won’t make me do any of the proper dangerous stuff anyway, I’d need heaps of training for that.”</p><p>She looks unconvinced, and unbidden, the image of Tonks’s body lying on the floor of the Great Hall comes to his mind. The training didn’t save her.</p><p>She had relented eventually, after Harry promised that they would protect each other. (It was almost like his mum trusted Harry more than she trusted him.)</p><p>He’d been an auror for six months now, and he found that he didn’t actually want it. Sure, it was better than going back to school, but that was a very low bar. He only got to see Hermione at Hogsmeade weekends (something about “no, Ron, I cannot take special privileges just because I helped kill Voldemort — the aim is to be as normal as possible, to help everyone return to how it was before”), and hunting down people who wanted to kill you wasn’t more fun when you had official paperwork saying you were allowed to do it. Hermione had come back for winter holidays, but she’d left a week ago, and Ron was miserable.</p><p>He was sitting in the living room with Harry, winning a game of wizard chess, when he realised. “Harry,” he said, completely forgetting that he was halfway to moving a bishop to E5, “what if I quit?”</p><p>“But you’re winning,” Harry said, pointing to the not-inconsiderable collection of chess pieces Ron had collected with brutal efficiency so far. </p><p>“No — I mean being an auror. I dunno, I don’t — I don’t think I want to do this anymore.”</p><p>He kept his eyes fixed on his bishop instead of looking up at Harry’s face, because he didn’t want to see the judgement that he was sure he’d see there. Harry was the <i>chosen one</i> — he was basically <i>destined</i> to do this, to be all righteous and noble and dedicate his life to stopping the Forces of Evil or whatever. Ron, on the other hand, was pretty sure he didn’t have a destiny — and if he did, he was pretty sure it wasn’t this.</p><p>He just… didn’t want Harry to see him as a coward. Well, he didn’t want anyone to see him as a coward, really — but especially not his best friend. Harry had sacrificed so much for this fight, and Ron couldn’t even stick it out for a good salary and free weekends.</p><p>“What d’you want to do instead?” Harry said, and he didn’t sound dismissive or like Ron was running away from his duty to king and country. Ron was still too much of a coward to look at him.</p><p>“I dunno. That’s my problem. What gives me joy?” He moved the bishop to E5 at last, handily taking a pawn. </p><p>“Chocolate frogs?” Harry suggested, and Ron rolled his eyes. </p><p>“That’s not a career path.”</p><p>Harry hummed in acknowledgement and then made a move so bad that Ron could already see how he was going to put him in check. It really was astounding that he hadn’t improved with how many games they’d played together.</p><p>Three moves later (Harry had sworn very satisfyingly when Ron put him in check), Harry said, “What about quidditch?”</p><p>“What about it?”</p><p>“You could try out for the Cannons,” Harry said, as if that were a perfectly normal thing that happened, like popping up the shops for some milk. </p><p>“I’m not good enough for that,” Ron said. “Check, by the way.”</p><p>Harry glanced down at the board with a frown. “How do you keep doing that?”</p><p>“Playing chess?”</p><p>“Putting me in check!”</p><p>“Well, when I’m in a position to take your king—”</p><p>“I know what check <i>is</i>,” Harry insisted, but Ron privately doubted that. Surely there was no way Harry was genuinely just this bad at chess.</p><p>“Anyway,” Harry said, continuing to frown at the board. “You can’t lose anything by trying out for the Cannons, surely. Give it a go.”</p><p>“You can’t just—” Ron gaped at him, and Harry stared back, eyebrows raised. “You can’t just try out for the Cannons, I’m pretty sure it’s invitation only. Otherwise everyone would do it.”</p><p>“Hmm,” Harry said, and Ron might have been more suspicious and followed up on that, except Harry made a fatal blunder and two moves later, Ron checkmated him.</p><p>Harry hadn’t won a game yet.</p>
<hr/><p>He continued going to work, because he didn’t have anything else to do and he still hadn’t thought of something that inspired more joy than sitting behind a desk and filling out another retrial request from a Death Eater that deserved to rot for life. (Unlike the last war, all the people currently locked up had had fair trials. It’s just that they were also blood supremacist murderers, so. No legs to stand on.)</p><p>A week after he’d first floated the idea of quitting to Harry, he got an owl with unfamiliar handwriting on the front. He wasn’t generally someone who got fanmail (that had thankfully slowed down eventually for Harry, but at the beginning there was a veritable parliament of owls waiting for him every morning), so he didn’t think it was that.</p><p>It turned out to be from the Chudley bloody Cannons.</p><p>They wanted him for a try-out. There was a spot for a keeper on the reserve team, they said, and they’d heard about his time playing for Gryffindor at school. As he read it, he pinched himself to make sure it was real.</p><p>And then he turned to Harry, who was buttering his toast like nothing had happened.</p><p>“Did you have something to do with this?” Ron said, waving the letter at him. Ron wasn’t sure how he could have, but it seemed like a strange coincidence, Harry suggesting it and then a week later he got a letter from his favourite team in the league. Too good to be true.</p><p>Harry at least had the decency to look guilty about it. “Well, I thought—” he began, rubbing the back of his neck, “I mean, you’ve always wanted to play for them, haven’t you? You’d absolutely be good enough.”</p><p>That just prompted more questions, if Ron was honest. “How did you even get the contact — what did you do, say, ‘Hello, I’m war hero Harry Potter and my mate fancies being your keeper, he hasn’t played in two years because he was off defeating fucking Voldemort instead of going to school, but quidditch is like casting lumos, isn’t it, you can’t forget?’”</p><p>Harry looked guiltier. “I… I mean, it wasn’t like that exactly? I had one of the scout’s names from, uh—” Here he stopped, as if suddenly realising what he’d said and wishing he could take it back. “They might’ve offered me a position? About a month after the end of the War? But I turned them down, because — I mean, the world was a shitshow, and I figured I could do more to help as an auror than a quidditch player.”</p><p>Ron was dimly aware that his mouth had fallen open, but he couldn’t quite remember how to close it. As the silence stretched out, Harry looked away and began putting far too much jam on his toast, his ears bright red.</p><p>“You turned them <i>down</i>?” Ron said, not quite believing he had heard right. “And — wait a second, why didn’t you tell me when this happened? You never said.”</p><p>Harry did not look up from where he was pretty much murdering his toast by spreading the jam far too viciously. “I… I thought it might hurt your feelings,” he said quietly, speaking to the toast and not to Ron. “Because they didn’t offer you one.”</p><p>“Mate,” Ron said, taking a moment to sort out his feelings. He decided the clearest one was hurt. “You’re a way better quidditch player than I am. I didn’t even join the team until fifth year — you can’t think I still seriously thought I could be in the league! I thought we were — you know, best mates, tell each other everything.” He was honestly pretty peeved that Harry had turned it down, because he could have been best friends with an honest-to-God Chudley Cannons player this whole time, but that was secondary to the fact that Harry had kept secrets from him.</p><p>“We are best mates!” Harry said quickly. “I swear, I — I was just… I’m sorry, I didn’t want to make you feel like I was… stealing your dreams, or something.”</p><p>“Fuck off,” Ron said, but it didn’t have much heat behind it. “You absolute tosser, I could’ve got Cannons merch for free.”</p><p>“You still can, since they asked you for a tryout,” Harry said, nodding towards the letter Ron still held in his hand. He had forgotten about it, caught up in the news of how Harry could get it sent in the first place.</p><p>“I don’t want to — to be riding on your coattails or anything,” Ron said. “You’re not stealing my dreams, but I don’t need you throwing around your big fancy name to get me a spot on the Chudley bloody Cannons.”</p><p>Harry shook his head. “I swear, I haven’t. All I did was ask them to give you a try-out, see if you’d be a good fit. You’d be on your own merit.”</p><p>Ron considered this. Harry may have been a complete tosser for keeping the earlier offer from him, but he wouldn’t lie about this, not when he knew how important it was to Ron that he earn anything good that came to him. “I haven’t played quidditch at all since we had that pick-up game the summer after sixth year,” Ron said, reading the letter again. It still didn’t seem quite real.</p><p>“You can probably take a few weeks to get back into it? If you resign from the Ministry, you’ll have plenty of time.”</p><p>Ron opened his mouth to say that he definitely couldn’t afford to just take a month off work, especially given the quidditch was far from a sure thing, but then he remembered that actually, he could. It turned out that an Order of Merlin came with a significant amount of money, not to mention the fact that an auror salary was surprisingly decent and that Harry had bought the house he, Ron and Hermione shared with the proceeds from the sale of Grimmauld Place and refused to accept any rent. Even factoring in the money he sent home, he didn’t have many expenses.</p><p>There was a difference between knowing Harry had faith in him enough that he was willing to give this a go, and actually having the confidence to tell anyone before he did it. So when he resigned from the auror office he just said that he wanted a change, to see if there was more to his life than dealing with Voldemort and the things he left behind. The Head Auror, Robards, gave him an uncharacteristically sympathetic look that Ron was not expecting, and didn’t argue. Instead, he said Ron would have to come in to organise handing off all his responsibilities (which, mercifully, were few and far between) and would be paid through the end of the week.</p><p>And that was it. He gave both his cases to Harry and did an apology tour of the office to everyone he was supposed to be doing grunt work for, and was officially unemployed two days later.</p><p>He decided not to write to Hermione about it — he suspected she would say nothing but have some very pointed facial expressions, which was honestly an externalisation of his own fears that he did not need. He spent a few days worrying that it would somehow appear in the paper (weirder things had, about those the press called Heroes of the Second Wizarding War), but it never did. When he asked Harry about it, Harry said very casually that Robards had told them all not to be tossers and keep mum about it because Ron wouldn’t appreciate the attention.</p><p>Ron suspected this had something to do with the look Robards had given him. He tried not to think about it.</p><p>The Cannons agreed to give him a month to prepare and he spent a long time flying under the invisibility cloak across the countryside. When Harry wasn’t at work he threw quaffles for Ron to catch, with shimmering circles drawn in the air to act as goal hoops. It became clear pretty quickly that Harry simply wasn’t around often enough, and Ron worried that even a month wouldn’t be enough until Harry proudly presented him with yet another letter.</p><p>“What have you done now?” Ron said, and Harry looked a little cross. Well, what was he supposed to think? He had mixed feelings about how this had all happened, to say the least, and that had all started much like this.</p><p>“Sometimes after practice, Wood would do some spell on the practice quaffles so that he could guard the hoops without someone else throwing, but I never bothered to learn the specifics — I wrote to him instead, and he just got back to me.”</p><p>“Did you tell him why?” Ron asked, suddenly terrified of Oliver Wood — who probably would have been starting keeper for the main team by now if the world hadn’t gone to hell — knowing that Ron had silly dreams of joining the league.</p><p>“No, I said a mate at work wanted to know. He didn’t even ask any questions, he’s just really enthusiastic about the spell. Wants me to join the show, of course, but he’s asked me that before.”</p><p>Just how often did Harry get post without telling Ron anything about it? They ate breakfast together!</p><p>“Alright,” Ron said, trying not to make his misgivings plain on his face.</p>
<hr/><p>The Chudley Cannons stadium was not exactly the biggest, as far as stand capacity. It still looked a little worse for wear from the year when quidditch was cancelled, but Ron could hardly breathe walking out onto the pitch, even so. He had dreamt of this moment as a child.</p><p>A cheery woman and an even cheerier man greeted him and told him to do a few laps to warm up. When he looked down at the end of his third lap, the woman was writing something on the clipboard and it looked as if they were having a discussion, though he couldn’t hear the words. The man pointed his wand at his throat and informed him that he would be throwing quaffles at Ron to see how he was, before they would get the reserves team on the pitch to play a game and see how he fit into the team dynamic.</p><p>Ron had done this before. It was fine. He was not freaking out. He was fine.</p><p>He managed to save all the quaffles the man threw, to which the man nodded approvingly. The problems only began once the game with the reserve team began, with various roles shuffled around so they had an approximation of two teams.</p><p>He saved the first. And the second. He missed the third, and the fourth he saved by the skin of his teeth. The fifth went better, and after the sixth the woman called a halt.</p><p>The reserve team was dismissed, many of them giving Ron a friendly nod, and he dismounted with apprehension.  </p><p>“Well, I think that went well,” said the cheery woman. Ron was pretty sure she must have told him her name. It was a shame he had absolutely no memory of it. “You can report to practice on Monday, but we’d like to get you in early so you can get all the paperwork in order. We’ll start you off on the Chutneys, but I’m sure you’ll make the show soon enough.”</p><p>“I, uh, sure?” Ron said, hardly believing what he was hearing. </p><p>“Excellent, see you on Monday, then. Best get here at nine.”</p><p>So Ron walked out of Chudley Stadium a member of the Chudley Chutneys. And to think, he once thought his life couldn’t get weirder than killing a piece of Voldemort’s soul after defeating a basilisk.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>anon comments are off because apparently i've attracted dickheads!! have you considered maybe............. not reading a fic you dislike? just close the goddamn tab!!!!!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i have never believed anything jkr said about quidditch and i'm not going to start now!! i know this timeline is absurd but so is quidditch, so i think i put just as much if not MORE effort in as she did. also, the nicknames have Big Hockey Energy, which is deliberate. please let me know whether my attempts at hockey energy were successful.</p><p>(i know jkr said in Quidditch Through the Ages that no other leagues exist but fuck that, it makes no SENSE, where's your DEPTH, meet me in the carpark behind the maccas so we can fight, joanne)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ron half wished Hermione were with him as he signed all the papers in an office above the changerooms of Chudley Stadium. He’d written to her about getting on the team (with copious apologies about not telling her earlier), but it wasn’t the same as getting to talk to her in person. He thought he understood what was happening — they’d had to explain the intricacies of a two-way contract to him but he was pretty sure he had it now. It just felt like there was some niggling thing he wasn’t quite getting — their level of excitement seemed wildly disproportionate to what he was bringing to the table (namely, a keeper who hadn’t even played all the way through school and then took two years off to go fight a war). Also, they kept talking about merchandise, which sounded absurd because who bought merch for the Chutneys?</p><p>It just felt like it was all too good to be true, and Hermione would know how.</p><p>He was released from the office twenty minutes before practice, so he arrived in the changerooms with plenty of time to spare. He’d just finished changing into the robes he found on the shelf that had a temporary name plate on it saying WEASLEY (and wasn’t that a trip) when a woman with dark hair and impeccable eyeliner came in. She looked like she could beat Ron in a fight without breaking a sweat. Ron instinctively looked around for another door, in case he needed to flee the scene (he may have been an auror, but knowing when to retreat was just as important as good duelling technique), but there was only one door and she was in front of it.</p><p>So instead he made himself busy with his socks, taping them so that they wouldn’t slip down under his shinguards. </p><p>“You the new keeper?” the woman said, and Ron sat up so quickly he felt a little dizzy.</p><p>“Yeah,” he said, holding out his hand. “Ron Weasley.”</p><p>“Anoushka Morozova,” she said, shaking his hand. “I’m the captain and one of the chasers.”</p><p>Ron didn’t remember her from the tryout but honestly, he hadn’t seen anyone up close and had been concentrating on not making a fool of himself. Still, he would’ve thought he’d have noticed her even then, because she was… intimidating. Intimidating as in “very beautiful”. He was sure that if he stood up she would be taller than him, and he was struck by the sudden, terrible knowledge that she could murder him if he disappointed her and no one would ever find out what happened. Probably. </p><p>He crossed his legs.</p><p>“You looked decent at the tryout,” she said, putting her bag down and getting out her kit. She turned around and took off her shirt, which Ron took as the sign that he should politely make himself very busy staring at the floor or double-checking his socks. He picked the floor. “Fangfoss got called up and we need a backup keeper,” she continued, her voice muffled for a moment. “You probably won’t see a game for a while unless Jones gets injured. I hope you’re not expecting your name up in lights.”</p><p>“Of course not!” Ron said hurriedly, wondering how he would know when it was safe to look up again. “I’ve had more than enough of the spotlight, honestly. I want to play quidditch, that’s all.” Well, he would also like to never have a deadly curse flung at him by someone in a mask, but he suspected that was not the most relatable thing to say. He had no idea where Anoushka had been during the war — her accent was heavy, and he assumed she had come over from the Russian league. She probably did not have a history of being on the front lines.</p><p>She made a noncommittal sound and Ron was saved from having to defend himself by three more players walking into the changing room. </p><p>“Frosty,” one of them, the tall man in the middle, said in a broad Australian accent, “glad to see you didn’t do anything drastic after Saturday.” </p><p>“Fuck off, Kev,” Anoushka said in reply. “Also, straighten up, we’ve got the new keeper. Don’t want to give him a bad impression.”</p><p>“I’m an angel,” Kev said, blowing Anoushka a kiss and then turning towards Ron. “Kevin Keighery. This is my cousin, Andrea Keighery, and this is Pooja Talavar. Don’t worry about Anoushka, she has a big bark but her bite’s not so bad.”</p><p>“Not like you’d know,” Andrea said, scoffing.</p><p>“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, one of us pashed the captain and it wasn’t me,” Kevin said, rolling his eyes. He was clearly trying not to laugh, which ruined the effect. “If we’re boasting, though, I’ve definitely given the most gobbies—”</p><p>“KEIGHERY.”</p><p>“—to players in the show,” Kevin finished in a whisper.</p><p>“I can still hear you! Get your fucking kit on, you can measure dicks with the new guy later.”</p><p>Ron had no idea what a gobby was but he knew, somehow, that he would deeply regret asking.</p><p>“Half the team haven’t even arrived yet,” Kevin grumbled as he got his things out of his bag and began to undress.</p><p>“Yeah, and I’ll tell them off when they get here.” As Anoushka spoke, two more players came in, calling out their greetings. </p><p>“Nice of you to join us,” Anoushka said. “Flip, Jonesy, this is Ron Weasley, the new reserve keeper. I expect you to find your best paternal instincts, Jonesy. Weasley’s your rookie now.”</p><p>“I want a rookie,” Kevin said. “Jonesy always gets all the best stuff.”</p><p>“Be better at baking, then,” Jonesy said. “She likes shortbread.”</p><p>“Jonesy, stop spilling my secrets and get your kit on. We have to be on the pitch in ten minutes.”</p><p>Ron was pretty sure he heard Jonesy muttering something about Anoushka’s definition of ‘secrets’ as he sat down in the next stall and began stripping his clothes off with practised, efficient motions. He was wearing a sports bra underneath his shirt, which surprised Ron until he very abruptly remembered the first rule of changing rooms: no staring.</p><p>Jonesy (or, as he had introduced himself once he was decent again, Bryn Jones, but Jonesy was fine) had wandered off towards the toilets by the time the last three members of the team jogged in. They, at least, all started with, “Sorry Frosty!” and didn’t even look Ron’s way.</p><p>With one minute to go, Anoushka whistled with her fingers to get everyone’s attention. “For those who came late and missed it, today’s the first practice with our new backup keeper, Ron Weasley. Make him welcome, don’t scare him too badly. Ron, stick to Jonesy like a duckling. Alright you lot, out you go.”</p><p>Everyone filed out of the room with their brooms, those who hadn’t greeted him before smiling at him and saying their names on the way past. Basil Murphy, Katharina Khan, Oyinkansola Bankole. Ron was certainly going to forget <i>everyone’s</i> name.</p><p>They did warmups with the team and then he and Jonesy split off to do work with their own coach, the man from Ron’s tryout. (It turned out the cheery woman was the main coach; her name was Waltilde Stogner.) The keeper coach did not introduce himself, and Ron made a mental note to ask Jonesy later. Practice went alright, he thought — he didn’t save a single shot when they had a scrimmage at the end, but no one seemed bothered by that. Jonesy clapped him on the shoulder and said he’d get better as he got more used to the team and how things worked.</p><p>People were horsing around as they waited for their shot on goal; they were serious when they had to be, but the practice was still filled with whoops of joy and laughter. There were no life-or-death situations. Ron breathed for the first time in a long time.</p>
<hr/><p>The first game Ron was on the team for he sat on the sidelines, ready to go on should Jonesy get injured but otherwise just having the most incredible pitch-side seat he’d ever had. He got to see the Chudley Chutneys mascot up close, which was — and Ron wasn’t sure why he was surprised, because what should he have expected? — a giant jar of chutney. Well, it was a man dressed in a terrifyingly large jar of chutney with his legs sticking out the bottom and a bubblehead charm giving him breathable air in between all the chutney. (Ron was assuming it was real chutney. Why wouldn’t it be?)</p><p>The match went decently well — it was always impossible to really predict, with the snitch making every single other action of the game irrelevant unless you were losing by fifteen entire goals — and Pooj came through with the snitch. Afterwards, when they were all changing, Kevin said, “Weasley, you’re coming out to the pub, right?”</p><p>Ron hesitated for a moment. He’d not even got to do anything — did he really want to have drinks with the people who did? Then again, it was his first game, and these were his coworkers; he didn’t have Harry and Neville to fall back on for company or to gossip when Gertrude inevitably left the kettle off the hob and the water was stone cold for whoever wanted tea next.</p><p>Then again, he also didn’t have Gertrude.</p><p>“If you like?” Ron said, giving Kevin an out. He had been perfectly friendly, but he didn’t think Basil liked him much, kept giving him weird looks, and Oyinkan had been downright frosty. If one of them wanted to disinvite him, this was their opportunity.</p><p>“Of course, mate!” Kevin said, clapping him on the back. “We won’t get you properly munted until you’ve played your first game, but it’ll be a fun time anyway. Maybe Anoushka will let her hair down.”</p><p>“Please do not get my rookie plastered,” Jonesy said in a resigned tone.</p><p>“No, weren’t you listening? I’m saving that! I promise, I’ll have him home by eleven, cut him off at three drinks, dad.”</p><p>“I guess I’ll have to come as chaperone,” Jonesy said. Kevin laughed, so Ron did too, though he wasn’t entirely sure what the joke was.</p><p>No one bothered them at the pub — they were the reserve team, after all — and while Anoushka did not let her hair down, literally or figuratively, Ron did witness Andrea and Pooja attempt a waltz, which Jonesy claimed was more coordinated than it had been at their wedding. Since they were both swaying for reasons unrelated to the music, he wasn’t sure Jonesy was telling the truth.</p>
<hr/><p>Part of the whirlwind of new experiences, such as professionally-overseen training and playing in front of complete strangers, was, apparently, photoshoots. No one else seemed to do them, but presumably it was because he was new? One of the office staff had said they would use them for advertising to get people interested in the minor league, which was pretty flattering, if confusing. Surely he didn’t have that much pull, as Harry Potter’s Trusty Sidekick?</p><p> At the next practice, the coach approached him afterwards and Ron was worried he was in trouble for a moment before Stogner said, “We’re going to put you in for tomorrow’s game. It’s Wimbourne, they’re having a terrible season, so we’re not throwing you into the deep end. It’s definitely still a step up from school games, though, so that’s not an excuse to slack. Get a good night’s sleep.”</p><p>That was, of course, impossible. Ron felt like he hardly slept at all, dropping off just before four, and waking with a pounding headache and an aching jaw. Harry took one look at him and rummaged in the medicine cabinet for a potion that tasted like a cross between licking an icicle, getting hit by static electricity and swallowing an entire bottle of menthol. It did the job waking Ron up, though, and he looked almost human by the time he reached the stadium. Harry was unable to make it, as he had Important Auror Business to attend to, but he was as excited as everyone else for his debut — Kevin, for example, was already plotting some kind of horrific bar crawl, and Ron hoped he intended to wait until it was dark, if the snitch got caught quickly. Ron just felt queasy, and by the time they were all dressed he seriously considered ducking into the loo to be sick. </p><p>They were ordered onto the pitch before he had the chance. The game went… well, the first half hour he thought he was doing alright. He made a few close saves, but that just made them look more impressive, didn’t it? The Wimbourne keeper was a brick wall, though, and at some point things just seemed to fall apart. He kept misreading the chasers’ cues or fumbling the quaffle. </p><p>And then, of course, the Wimbourne seeker caught the snitch.</p><p>No one was in a good mood afterwards; even Kevin was quiet. He suggested that they could still go celebrate Ron’s first game, but when Ron shook his head, Kevin didn’t push it.</p>
<hr/><p>“We should never rely on the seeker catching the snitch,” the coach said the next day. “Do I need to send you all back to Hogwarts to learn the basic rules of quidditch? Talavar shouldn’t carry the entire team, it’s everyone else’s responsibility to score enough goals that it doesn’t matter. No one person lost yesterday’s game, and I need you all to step it up.”</p><p>Jonesy was back in for the next game against Puddlemere, which Ron was secretly glad for. Oliver Wood had joined Puddlemere United three years previously and then been traded to Appleby in what everyone (except, he supposed, the Puddlemere GM) knew was an appallingly lop-sided trade. All the same, Puddlemere made him nervous. Pooja did manage to catch the snitch this time, which was a relief because the score was close the whole game, both keepers flying on their heads to pull off spectacular saves. </p><p>The mood was high for the game after that, where the coach decided once again to put Ron in goal. This, at last, was what he had dreamt of as a small boy: things went <i>right</i>. He let in a few goals, but not half as many as the other keeper, who was about as useful in front of goal as a soggy beef wellington. Pooja once again caught the snitch, and this time they really did go on a pub crawl, which ended in Jonesy handing off a very unsteady Ron to Harry at the end of the night with a, “Please make sure he doesn’t choke on his own sick, thanks for defeating Voldemort.”</p><p>And then, in the next match, Jonesy took a bludger to the shoulder followed by a quaffle to the exact same spot in quick succession, and Ron almost imagined he could hear the awful crunching sound from the ground.</p><p>Ron irrationally hoped it wasn’t going to be a big deal. butMadam Pomfrey had healed Harry’s arm when it had no bones in it at all! Unfortunately, regrowing the bones of a child was very different to healing the broken bones of an adult, and he knew from past experience following the league that this kind of thing took you out of the lineup for weeks. And so, they sent Ron in. Backup keeper, that was his job, after all.</p><p>He played terribly. Everything just felt slightly off. He felt like he hadn’t had time to prepare — he’d got complacent, watching from the bench, never expecting he’d have to step in. He let in almost every goal the other team scored, and the only reason they managed to scrape out a win was that everyone else was playing with righteous fury, as if to avenge Jonesy.</p><p>When they got back to the changerooms, they were told Jonesy had been sent to Mungo’s. The word in the papers the next day was ‘upper body injury, at least three weeks’. Everyone was grim, but as Anoushka gave Pooja the large rainbow hat for player of the match, Kevin said, “Ando, you should argue with upstairs that your marriage is carrying the team right now. At least, I don’t think <i>I’m</i> the reason Pooj turned down that offer from the Harpies. True love might get us the cup this year.”</p><p>“Of course you’re the reason, Kev. She can’t get enough of your ugly mug. Without you, she would’ve taken the trade and I would quit quidditch to become a very wealthy housewife,” Andrea said. Kevin threw his dirty uniform at her.</p>
<hr/><p>The first game after Jonesy’s injury was terrible. Ron kept thinking about the disastrous previous game, and it seemed to just play out again in front of his eyes. He was about as useful as Swiss cheese and he could see the chasers deflate with every goal scored against them. The second game was worse, with Pooja catching the snitch and that <i>still</i> not being enough to give them the win.</p><p>Even Kevin had been short with Ron afterwards, and it was only the fact that he didn’t want to explain to Harry why he was getting blind drunk alone that stopped Ron from drowning his sorrows. He’d fucked it. He’d let everyone down, when they’d been so kind to him. He’d known he wasn’t good enough at quidditch, and he still went for it, believing Harry and the coaches, though he had no bloody idea why they even accepted him.</p><p>It was as he was drifting off to sleep that he remembered Sixth Year, with the felix felicis. Sure, it hadn’t been real, but — what if he did take it for real? As soon as he thought it, he tried to dismiss it — if he were going to break the law because he was playing this badly, he may as well quit. He’d <i>known</i> he wasn’t good enough to go pro. He deserved this. </p><p>But… he had no idea what he would say to anyone if he did. Hermione would probably say “I told you so”, and his brothers would never let him hear the end of it. What would he do instead? Crawl back to the auror office and beg Robards for his job back? Admit that he really wasn’t anything more than someone who duelled dark wizards?</p><p>He’d only take it for one game. Just to get back on track. He just needed help to get out of the pit he’d dug himself into, the endless loop of feeling like he was terrible at quidditch and then <i>being</i> terrible at quidditch.</p><p>When he went looking the next day in Knockturn Alley, he found it in the second shop he visited. Initially, he balked at the price — but what else was he going to spend his money on? So he paid a horrific amount of money and took the small vial home, buying something inconsequential on the way so he could have an excuse for the outing if Harry asked.</p><p>He was dreading practice the next day, fully anticipating that the rest of the team would still be cold with him after the whole trainwreck without Jonesy. He half-considered taking some felix before practice, but decided that would be overkill. Thankfully, it didn’t go as badly as he’d expected; his teammates all made eye contact with him, at least, and he saved almost all of the shots against him. Everyone seemed almost hopeful by the end of it, except for Anoushka, who changed and went home having barely said a word to anyone.</p><p>By the time the next game came around, Ron was having second thoughts about the felix idea. He’d been doing well in practices, saving most shots without difficulty and only fumbling the really tricky ones. Maybe he’d just had an off-game? Surely that happened even to the best players in the league. Pooj had been offered a major-league contract, and even she didn’t catch the snitch every single time.</p><p>But then — what if he fucked this game up too? Practices were admittedly much lower-pressure than playing against an actual opponent - and after just a few minutes of considering it, of imagining the looks on his teammates’ faces if he lost them <i>another</i> game, he made his mind up.</p><p>He took the felix locked in the bathroom of the team change room, having told the rest of the team to go ahead to the bench without him. He’d used the very flimsy excuse that he just needed a minute to himself; he knew they would all think it was nerves, and that that would bolster their misgivings, but hopefully his performance today would push that out of their minds.</p><p>He only took a small drop of felix. He didn’t want to overdo it — that was a surefire way to get caught, and besides, he didn’t <i>need</i> to overdo it. He wasn’t trying to cheat. For a moment, nothing happened, but then he felt lighter than air, like nothing bad could ever possibly happen. Sure, he had lost last game, but he was an excellent quidditch player! This time would be different!</p><p>When they actually got into the air, Ron was shocked to see that in spite of his horrendous performance last match, there were several fans in the crowd holding banners and signs with his name on them. That was… surely that was odd? Maybe they were just trying to be encouraging, he decided. </p><p>He was spectacular. Portree didn’t stand a chance. Sure, he let a few goals in, but even as they slipped past his fingers, he knew they didn’t matter. It would all work out. He knew it, he was more certain of it than he had been of anything else in his life. It had been forecast to rain, but the weather remained perfect the whole game: just enough clouds to stop uncomfortable glare, bright enough that he could see to the other end of the pitch easily, and just the right temperature for being comfortable in his uniform. Every time a Chutneys teammate fouled, the referee didn’t seem to catch it, so Ron didn’t face a single penalty shot. </p><p>When Pooja caught the snitch, everyone piled on her in celebration, but then — they all came over to the goal posts to pile on Ron, too. Kevin gave him a big sloppy kiss on the cheek and yelled in his ear about how he was a bloody legend. Andrea slammed into him at speed, almost knocking him off his broom in her haste to hug him.</p><p>It was <i>incredible</i>.</p>
<hr/><p>He really did plan for that to be the only time he used the felix. He’d got his groove back, his confidence had been restored, and George surprised him after the game by turning up and congratulating him on his playing. Ron hadn’t even realised George was watching. Various siblings had been asking for tickets to his games every Sunday dinner for weeks, but he’d always wormed his way out of it — what if he fucked up in front of his family? That terror outweighed even the pride of being an official quidditch player.</p><p>Of course, he had forgotten that George could just buy a ticket. And because Ron was the luckiest man in Britain, George had bought one for the match where absolutely nothing went wrong. As George congratulated him and apologised for every time he doubted Ron’s quidditch prowess, Ron thought he could get used to this. </p><p>The next practice, the coach explained that because Falmouth had an exceptionally strong set of chasers, the pressure would be on Ron and Pooja to make sure the score didn’t get out of hand. It wouldn’t solely be on them, of course — it was a whole team effort, but Ron could read between the lines. </p><p>He took the felix again.</p><p>He took the same amount as last time, and at first it went well — he let in a few shots for verisimilitude, but generally he kept his head above water, and everyone was playing well. It felt like they might be able to pull this off.</p><p>And then, very abruptly, Falmouth caught the snitch.</p><p>Ron’s stomach felt like it dropped right out from under him. He’d taken the felix. It had been working — he could feel it working, could feel the potion guiding his hand to the right place to stop a shot. But they’d lost.</p><p>So the game after that, Ron took a little more. They won, but Ron couldn’t help but feel like it was too close — even though ideally they wouldn’t have to rely on Pooja’s performance, it often ended up that way. Getting a fifteen-goal lead was difficult, to say the least. He could hardly get Pooja to take the felix — that would be admitting that he had any, and Pooja might report him.</p><p>So… he just took a little more, the game after that. It was fine. He was fine. He could stop — he just wanted the team to do well. That’s all.</p>
<hr/>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>Dear Ron,</p>
  <p>We've finally finished repairing the whole of the Seventh Floor! McGonagall threw the Eighth Years who helped a little party in her office in celebration. Did you know she has a stash of very good scotch? (Well, Anthony claims it's good scotch. I don't really have enough of a refined taste for it.)</p>
  <p>Did I tell you that all the Gryffindor sports enthusiasts have started clamouring around me at breakfast since your team started to do so well? They figure that because I'm paying money to buy the box scores for the minor league, it means they don't have to. Well done on your most recent game! I’m so sorry I still haven’t made it out to one — you know I wish I could come, and as soon as the year's over I'll attend every game I can. </p>
  <p>I was reading an interview the other day that mentioned that your captain has a degree in Theoretical Transfiguration. Do you think she'd answer some questions I sent if you gave them to her?</p>
  <p>See you this weekend,</p>
  <p>Love,</p>
  <p>Hermione</p>
</blockquote>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ron and Hermione had arranged this Hogsmeade date weeks ago, and Ron had been trying not to think about it ever since.</p><p>He felt very guilty about it, of course - Hermione was so busy, and he knew this would probably be the only time he’d get to see her in person until the end of the school year, and he knew he should be very excited. But she was one of the people who knew him better than anyone else, and if anyone could see through what he was doing with felix, it was going to be her. </p><p>He had been… perhaps not as careful about the felix as he should have been. Whenever he hadn’t taken it for two or three days, he could see logically that he was overdoing it a little, and promised to himself that he would cut back on it. When it came time to take it, though, it never seemed to matter quite as much. He did what he needed to do so the team could win — so he could prove he was useful. So that he wouldn’t disappoint people.</p><p>As he was getting ready to go to Hogsmeade, he considered taking the felix. Just a little bit, so Hermione wouldn’t realise what was going on. Sure, Harry hadn’t noticed anything, but Hermione was definitely more observant than… well, either of them, to be fair. </p><p>As soon as the thought had entered his mind, he felt his face heat up with shame. Where the hell had that idea come from? The felix was strictly for games, and even that was bad enough. He pushed aside the intrusive, absurd feeling that he was somehow unluckier than normal without the potion, telling himself it was only nerves, and guilt. </p><p>In the end, the worst that happened was that she looked at him for a beat too long and said, “Are you—” but cut herself off. He couldn’t know what it was about, but he had his suspicions.</p>
<hr/><p>Ron wasn’t even worried when he was asked to stay behind by the coach. Their team record was excellent — they were definitely going to make the playoffs, and Ron had definitely played his part in that. </p><p>“We’ve been really impressed by your growth over the last few months,” she said. “We’d like to call you up to the Cannons. You might not stay there, of course — but we think we’re ready.”</p><p>He almost didn’t believe what she was saying — if tiny six-year-old Ron could see him now…</p><p>“Thank you!” he said, his grin feeling too big for his face. He couldn’t wait to tell Hermione when she came home on Friday.</p><p>“It’s not like you’d have to move, thankfully — if you were in the Arrows organisation, their reserve team is in Dorset. Since your contract’s a two-way, you won’t have to sign anything new. Before you play we’d just have to get you to take some anti-doping test — standard stuff, it’s required by the league. Let’s meet at nine tomorrow to get it all sorted, yes?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Ron said, trying not to show how much the balloon of excitement in his chest had just burst. Fuck. </p><p>When he made it to the changerooms, somehow, most people were still there, dressed and packing up to leave. He felt like more time should have passed — that the world should be noticeably different.</p><p>“Anoushka, could I talk to you — alone?”</p><p>“Is this about what the coach just told you?” She didn’t look surprised, and Ron tried hard not to think about why.</p><p>“Yeah,” he said.</p><p>“Go have a shower and I’ll wait for you. By the time you’re dressed everyone else will probably have cleared out.”</p><p>He just stood in the shower for a long time, water running down his back as he tried to work out how to tell Anoushka his secret without sounding like a terrible person. Or causing Anoushka to hex him so badly he needed to go to St Mungo’s. Or for her to go straight to Rita Skeeter.</p><p>He could not think of a way to avoid any of those outcomes. Perhaps if he kept his wand in his hand he could get off a protego to avoid the first hex, but after that? He was done for.</p><p>Eventually, he had to face the fact that he could not drown himself in the shower, and by the time he came out his fingers were wrinkled and Anoushka was looking unimpressed. “What the hell were you doing in there? I would like to go home before I die of old age, you know.”</p><p>“Sorry,” he mumbled, turning away so he could get dressed. </p><p>Anoushka had started off intimidating and — well, that hadn’t really changed, per se, but she was no longer <i>only</i> intimidating. She was more like, Ron imagined, if Oliver Wood cared more about the wellbeing of his teammates than winning, but still cared about winning an awful lot. </p><p>“I know it’s intimidating to start from scratch again on a new team, but you get used to it,” Anoushka said as Ron brushed his hair. “And the media’s not half as bad as it seems. Well, it is, but you get used to that too. It’s alright to be nervous. Someone will take you under their wing, just like Jonesy did.”</p><p>“It’s, uh, it’s not that,” Ron said, feeling like he was signing his own death warrant. Which he was. “I’m…” He cast around for one last desperate attempt to make this easier, but this was it. Checkmate. There was no way out of this one.</p><p>“Part of being on the Cannons is taking an anti-doping test,” he said, looking at the floor so he didn’t have to see the dawning realisation on Anoushka’s face. He wouldn’t see her reach for her wand, but he deserved whatever was coming to him anyway. </p><p>He just had to come out and say it. Whatever happened next would happen. “I — what if I test positive?”</p><p>“What have you been taking?” Anoushka was using her Captain Voice. Ron couldn’t answer for a moment, feeling like his throat had closed up, and she repeated her question.</p><p>“Felix,” he said quietly. </p><p>“How long?”</p><p>“Since… the second game after Jonesy’s injury.”</p><p>Anoushka was silent for a long time, but Ron didn’t dare look up.</p><p>“The only thing you can hope for is to confess before they administer the test. You’ll be out of the league, but it might not reach the paper. Depends how gracious they’re feeling. They’ve been using you pretty heavily in promotional material, so it could go either way — angry that you’re taking further promotion away from them, or grateful that you got people to watch minor league quidditch for once.”</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Ron said, feeling like he wanted to disappear. He’d not wanted to disappoint his teammates, and here he was — what was more disappointing than this? He had no idea if the team would face some kind of consequences for this. Would they be out of the playoffs?</p><p>“I’ll have to tell the team,” she said, ignoring what he’d said, and Ron nodded, still looking at the floor. </p><p>“I’m really sorry,” Ron said again, but Anoushka interrupted him.</p><p>“Save it, Weasley.”</p><p>When Ron looked up at last, she had left the room.</p>
<hr/><p>“Fireworks probably aren’t what you want for that, then,” Ron said to the large-eyed boy in front of him who was clutching a Bang Bang Boggart Banger. “For chaos in a small space, I’d recommend our Weather in a Bottle — if you combine two different varieties, it can really get exciting. Don’t worry, it looks like lightning, but it’s completely harmless. I’ve participated in trials to make sure, and I still have all my hair.”</p><p>The boy looked longingly at the firework he was holding.</p><p>“You can get that too, of course, or instead — that’s just my suggestion. Do you need anything else?”</p><p>“No, thanks,” the boy said, and Ron moved away as he began examining the backs of the Weather in a Bottle packages.</p><p>“Ron, can you get more Peruvian Darkness Powder out of the back? Someone just bought everything on the shelf. Not sure what they wanted it for, but I wish I could see it.” George grinned at him as he passed, moving to the register where there was someone waiting to buy an alarming amount of dungbombs. The winter holidays were the best time of the year for sales, and this year was living up to expectations.</p><p>“Sure thing,” Ron said.</p><p>He weaved around a gaggle of children who were debating what would give them the best value for money without Filch actually murdering them on the spot and reached the back room, levitating several boxes off the shelf before he found the Peruvian Darkness Powder. He enjoyed this, to his surprise. Not levitating the boxes, specifically, but working at Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes — the helping customers, the methodical act of restocking, being a guinea pig for new products. </p><p>After he had been very graciously allowed to retire from quidditch — quietly and without fanfare, a brief joint statement by him and the Chutneys citing only “personal reasons” — he’d hidden in his house for two weeks. He’d had to face Harry first, who kept trying to apologise for pushing him into it. That was definitely not what had happened, but Ron took comfort in the knowledge that Harry didn’t think him a piece of shit for what he’d done. Hermione came home three days later, and telling her was far more difficult; she admitted that she had suspected as much when they’d seen each other a few weeks ago. If she thought poorly of him for it, though, she didn’t say so.</p><p>He broke two plates and three glasses before Hermione presented him with a page detailing the symptoms of felix withdrawal. Bad luck, clumsiness, headaches, being unquenchably thirsty — it was all there. He was just glad he’d escaped the persistent nausea. </p><p>He skipped the first family dinner out of necessity, nursing a headache that felt like there was a mountain troll pummelling the inside of his skull. The second he skipped out of shame. Molly arrived the next morning, defeating Harry at the door who said that Ron was feeling poorly and probably wouldn’t be very good company.</p><p>In truth, Ron had mostly recovered by then — he wasn’t handling anything breakable still, but the headaches were gone. She demanded to know what was wrong with him and if his illness was why he wasn’t playing in quidditch games anymore. As much as Ron was tempted to lie and say he was just on IR, he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep it up. When he told her, Molly cried, which Ron thought was more his place than hers. She did agree to tell the rest of the family, though, which was a weight off Ron’s shoulders.</p><p>Three days later he got the owl from George.</p><p>He’d made Harry open it, which turned out to be unnecessary. “I have absolutely no place to judge you,” George had written, “except for the fact that your poison of choice is so bloody expensive.” He’d asked Ron for help with the shop with the promise that he wouldn’t mention Ron’s brief quidditch career. At first, Ron had thought it too good to be true — that George would use this as a prime prank opportunity or something.</p><p>As it turned out, Ron wasn’t the only Weasley struggling with life after Voldemort. He found George drinking from a flask while on the clock more than once, though it happened less and less as time went on. </p><p>Occasionally, he heard about Chutneys — when there was a catastrophic mid-air collision, Kevin was called up to replace one of the Cannons beaters for three games. Jonesy was traded to Appleby. Anoushka led the team to the reserve league finals, losing the cup by a hair. Mostly he tried not to think about them, though — he doubted they were thinking about him.</p><p>One day when they were cleaning up after all the customers had left, George admitted that he was glad Ron had left the Chutneys. “I’ve always needed help with the shop,” he said, studying the boxes he was sorting very intently and not looking anywhere near Ron. “I tried getting an assistant, but they never — they weren’t Fred. And they complained that my sorting system didn’t make sense.”</p><p>“What? Of course it makes sense,” Ron said. Sure, it wasn’t alphabetical or by line or anything, but you just had to get used to it. </p><p>“I know! Anyway, I — I was hardly going to ask you to leave your important job fighting evil, and then when you became an actual professional quidditch player… I know it’s horrible, but I’m glad you’re here.”</p><p>“I’m glad I’m here too,” Ron admitted. This, at last, was what he’d been looking for: something he was good at — really good at. Customers asked him questions, and he had answers at the ready; he knew his trade because he found it genuinely interesting. To his own surprise, he found the routine comforting, though it could never be boring (George’s new products still in the testing stage made sure of that), and he took pride in the fact that the place ran like clockwork through their combined efforts. It certainly didn’t hurt that the job came without the crushing pressure or the threat of imminent death that had characterized his previous endeavors. And George outsourced all his paperwork. </p><p>Perhaps the felix had made him lucky after all.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>These have probably been the hardest 10k of fic I've ever written and I'm not entirely sure why? I do think I have grown as a writer as a result though, so I'm glad I did it. Thanks, once again, especially to Kayla and Melanie. &lt;3</p><p>I had so many notes and headcanons about the Chutneys and I'm sad I didn't have the space to properly explore them. :( maybe one day? who knows.</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>anon comments are off because apparently i've attracted dickheads!! have you considered maybe............. not reading a fic you dislike? just close the goddamn tab!!!!!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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